Cuomo: Fracking review “has nothing to do with the State of the State”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday said no one should be reading into the lack of a hydrofracking mention in his State of the State address, pointing to the ongoing review of the controversial technique.

Cuomo’s 80-minute address on Wednesday did not include anything on shale-gas drilling or the Marcellus Shale.

“We’re doing a review of fracking on the merits,” Cuomo said, echoing comments by one of his top aides made yesterday. “We’re now looking at the health consequences of hydrofracking, as you know. That has nothing to do with the State of the State.”

Cuomo’s comments came after receiving his flu shot in the Red Room of the state Capitol.

Cuomo bristled when asked about criticism from fracking supporters about his plan to boost the upstate economy, including a call to allow three Las Vegas-style casinos there.

“That is some tortured, conspiratorial analysis to say because he doesn’t want to do fracking—which no one ever said, you’d have to assume a fact. It wouldn’t be the first time, but you’d have to assume that fact—then we would be doing casinos upstate,” Cuomo told reporters. “That’s a tad stretch even for some of your friends.”

4 Comments

Hugh Kimball

I wonder if Cuomo will come clean and tell DEC that we need to see the results of the “looking at health consequences” and the rest of the SGEIS before we finish commenting on the regulations. Come on, governor, restore the transparency, and put this process into proper order. First a completed SGEIS, then the regulations.

Thank you, Governor Cuomo. The health of the citizens of NYS, the quality and availability of clean, fresh water, the possibility of 9% leakage rate of greenhouse gas methane and radioactive radon, the decimation of land, both private and public, the shattering of rock deposits under homes with owners who refuse to accept money from the gas industry and are forced to have the land under their homes drilled, the exacerbated erratic and possibly dangerous weather patterns due to climate change – all of that has nothing to do with the State of New York State as far as you are concerned. What bubble are you living in?

How dare you insult New Yorkers concerned about their and their children’s futures? Shame on you.

Fracking – or not – would certainly be a factor in a number of the initiatives about which the governor spoke. Upstate tourism. Agriculture and the increased marketing of upstate agricultural products, such as wine, beer, and yogurt. Combatting global warming. Emergency response. Affordable housing. Regional economic development. Energy czar and renewable energy technology. Education. For those of us in the Southern Tier, who have the most immediately at stake, fracking was the elephant in the room during the State of the State. Our regional economic development council has been moving forward with a number of good plans that are bringing jobs. If the widespread industrialization of fracking begins here, it will disrupt those plans. Fracking also would run counter to the Governor’s intent to decrease NY’s greenhouse gas emissions, especially as the proposed regulations do not require green completions and do not take any steps to reduce methane leakage from gas processing and transmission. And given that the regulatory deadline is Feb. 27, it is hard to say that fracking as a topic is not a timely one for a Jan. 9 State of the State.

The Governor spoke about how progressive New York is and must be. Environmental protection is a progressive value. So is not exposing lower socioeconomic level areas to harmful pollution in order to provide corporate profits.

With thousands of people from all over New York inside the site of the GOVERNORS State of the State Address loudly chanting against fracking New York State, Governor Cuomo would have to be both blind and deaf not to know we were there and why we were there. Then, to use the speech to positions himself as a progressive and to ignore the progressives whose support he seeks, was again insulting. Apparently Governor Cuomo likes silence on topics that are under review (well maybe not projects he supports (like a Tappan Zee Bridge) at the same time that he proports to support transparency. Well, he has finished his DEC “Health” Review with a cursory look by Dept of Health experts, but has chosen to keep the results a secret while leaking an older study giving fracking a clean bill of health. So we start with resisting an outside, peer reviewed study, then choosing to have the apparently industry friendly DEC do an in-house “health:” study with a shotgun type review by an in-house Health Department. The Governor and his appointees evidently think that a rush to frack NY (when the country is awash in gas)
is more important than the health of New Yorks adults and children, the long term negative economic impacts fracking will leave with us to pay for and to ship the gas to foreign countries now (build the pipelines and LNG import/export terminals) rather than save the gas for our future when there might be a safe way to extract it (if ever there is). I hope the governor or his aides noted that it was progressive women who elected President Obama and there are thousands of progressive women across the state and at our rallys who think their husbands and children
should not have their drinking water compromised. Instead of talking about transparency and progressive causes, he should turn the speech into action which gives voters confidence and all citizens protection that only government can provide